It's good to be the king. The 2012 Emmy Award nominations were announced
Thursday morning and four-time Drama Series winner Mad Men and two-time
Comedy Series winner Modern Family remained the top nominees.

But that doesn't mean there wasn't plenty of fresh blood. American Horror Story dominated the Miniseries and TV Movie categories with 17 nominations while Downton Abbey made a huge splash in the Drama categories with 16 nominations (including six for acting).

On the Drama side, for the first time in history, all of the nominees for Outstanding Drama Series are cable shows (The Good Wife got shut out). However, equally notable are the actors missing. Hugh Laurie was left out for the final season of House and four-time nominee John Slattery for Mad Men was snubbed (though co-star Jared Harris got in).

On the Comedy side, HBO's Girls and Veep made big splashes with major nominations for Series and Lead Actress. Somehow Parks and Recreation was left off the list for Outstanding Comedy Series, but luckily New Girl stars Zooey Deschanel and Max Greenfield scored nominations. In the "WTF?" category, Jon Cryer was nominated as a Lead Actor for Two and a Half Men while people like Bill Hader for Saturday Night Live and Merrit Wever for Nurse Jackie scored nominations. There also no love for Glee, which only picked up a measly three nominations for season 3 (for Make-Up, Cinematography and guest star Dot-Marie Jones).

The big story for reality is who was NOT nominated. American Idol was snubbed for the first time as a Reality Competition while Survivor's Jeff Probst, who has won the Emmy for Reality Host all four years it has existed, is left out in favor of Betty White.

As for the minor categories, I'm insanely happy to report that Community's "Remedial Chaos Theory" (aka the episode that created six alternate time lines) was nominated for Writing while Breaking Bad's mostly silent villain Tio Salamanca (Mark Margolis) scored a Guest Actor nomination where he'll compete against Mad Men's oddball Ben Feldman (Ginsberg) and Parenthood's Jason Ritter. Also, Raising Hope's brilliant song from the start of season 2 ("Welcome Back to Hope") was nominated for Original Music and Lyrics.